Tonya graduated from Sam Houston State University with a BFA in Communications. She began her real estate career working part time as an assistant while in high school and college.

Upon graduation, she worked as an educator and held leadership roles within the oil and gas industry, and has now come full-circle in her return to real estate. Tonya shared, “I want to use my creative teaching skills to educate people of the real estate market and assist them in each step of the way. I want to make this experience a special memory and as stress free as possible.”

When asked what attracted her the most to join Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Gary Greene, Tonya replied, “Office Manager Nikki Owen personally called me and spent a large part of her morning talking with me and answering my questions. I felt very at home and comfortable with Nikki, and knew Gary Greene was right for me. I’m proud to be affiliated with Gary Greene.”

Tonya is a proud mother of 3 grown children, one Senior and 2 graduates of Texas A&M. She enjoys traveling with family and friends and learning new cultures.

In step with the company’s commitment to community, she regularly volunteers and has participated in numerous events including school supply contests benefiting Stafford ISD, clothing drives for the Fort Bend Women’s Shelter, food drives, and made contributions for Toys for Tots. Tonya is also a Commit 4 Life blood donor, and has spent several years teaching Sunday School and participating in Vacation Bible School.

Tonya is very committed to her community, and looks forward to helping Buyers and Sellers to find their new home in Sugar Land, and within the communities of Fort Bend County.

]]>http://www.fortbendstar.com/tonya-williamson-joins-fort-bend-office/feed/053043Sugar Land welcomes ABM, a Fortune 500 companyhttp://www.fortbendstar.com/sugar-land-welcomes-abm-a-fortune-500-company/
http://www.fortbendstar.com/sugar-land-welcomes-abm-a-fortune-500-company/#respondWed, 23 Nov 2016 13:03:11 +0000http://www.fortbendstar.com/?p=52995The Sugar Land Development Corporation recently approved an agreement with ABM as the company relocates its corporate shared services operations to the City of Sugar Land.

ABM, a Fortune 500 company and a leading provider of facility solutions, has been serving Texas since 1945 and currently has more than 10,000 employees maintaining over 4,500 buildings throughout the state.

“ABM is excited to join the Sugar Land corporate community,” said ABM Industries Incorporated Chief Financial Officer D. Anthony Scaglione. “The City presented itself as a compelling business environment and a prime residential location. We look forward to our partnership with Sugar Land.”

ABM will bring approximately 390 jobs to Sugar Land over the next two years as the company occupies approximately 62,000 square feet within the Sugar Creek on the Lake office building at 14141 Southwest Freeway.

“Sugar Land is thrilled to welcome another Fortune 500 company to our corporate community,” said City Manager Allen Bogard. “Sugar Land’s pro-business attitude continues to attract businesses, bringing with them high quality jobs. We are proud ABM will call Sugar Land home.”

An incentive package was created by the city’s Office of Economic Development and approved by the Sugar Land Development Corporation to secure the company in Sugar Land. The Office of Economic Development worked with the Greater Houston Partnership to relocate ABM Shared Services division to Sugar Land following a regional search of potential sites.

“The Greater Houston Partnership greatly applauds ABM’s selection of Sugar Land as the hub of its corporate shared services operations,” said Greater Houston Partnership Chief Economic Development Officer Bob Pertierra. “ABM demonstrates a commitment to growing its corporate footprint in an area that offers a vast pool of talented and skilled workers, land for future growth, and superior quality of life assets.”

ABM is a leading provider of facility solutions with revenues of approximately $4.9 billion and over 100,000 employees in 300-plus offices throughout the United States and various international locations. ABM’s comprehensive capabilities include electrical and lighting, energy solutions, facilities engineering, HVAC and mechanical, janitorial, landscape and turf, mission critical solutions and parking, provided through stand-alone or integrated solutions.

ABM provides custom facility solutions in urban, suburban and rural areas to properties of all sizes — from schools and commercial buildings to hospitals, data centers, manufacturing plants and airports. ABM Industries Incorporated, which operates through its subsidiaries, was founded in 1909.

The board-certified physical and occupational therapists at Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital do more than help patients improve mobility and return to active lifestyles.

They are also training the next generation of specialized therapists in areas such as orthopedic physical therapy, sports physical therapy, athletic training and occupational therapy with a specialty in hand rehabilitation.

Each year, the hospital’s post professional residency programs give licensed therapists and athletic trainers the opportunity to further their education. Residents are able to work alongside leading therapists who provide one-on-one education and mentoring in both clinical and classroom settings. Residents also work directly with some of the area’s leading surgeons and orthopedic and sports medicine specialists to develop, implement and measure patient outcomes. Each of the individual residency tracts is specially designed to provide unique experiences; for example, the sports and athletic training residencies participate in live, on-field activities with local high school, college and professional teams, and athletic training residents serve as assistant athletic trainers at area high schools.

Houston Methodist Sugar Land is the only facility in the U.S. with fully accredited orthopedic physical therapy, sports physical therapy and athletic training programs in one location. The hospital’s athletic training residency program is one of just five programs accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE) in the country. The occupational therapy residency in hand rehabilitation is the third in the nation to achieve candidacy status from the American Occupational Therapy Association.

“Our faculty sets us apart from other residency programs,” said Toko Nguyen, physical therapy residency manager at Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital. “No one else can offer the same caliber of instructors, all under one roof. All of our faculty members are experienced and knowledgeable, having all completed residency or fellowship training themselves. They enjoy teaching our residents how to provide better, more effective therapy services to patients.”

The fast-paced environment at Houston Methodist Sugar Land and Houston Methodist Orthopedics & Sports Medicine ensures that residents see a broad range of patients and conditions throughout the 12-month program. Improving clinical reasoning skills and treatment approaches are key elements; residents are typically ready to sit for their certified specialist exam upon completion of the program.

“Our residents learn from a full range of clinical cases – from patients recovering from injury to those with long-term physical ailments or conditions,” said board-certified occupational therapist Peggy Boineau, who leads the hand therapy residency. “Through detailed classroom learning and work with patients, our residents master the latest and most sophisticated therapies in their chosen specialty. They leave here ready to make a difference in patients’ lives.”

Houston Methodist Sugar Land has been offering physical therapy specialty residencies since 2011, and over the years the program has grown significantly. That growth is reflective of a national trend toward specialized physical therapy, with residencies and fellowships providing additional training and expertise in specific areas of study.

“Young therapists today recognize the importance of focusing on a specialty,” said Nguyen. “Our program helps therapists further their studies and gain a deeper understanding of their chosen field. They leave here with excellent clinical reasoning skills along with the most advanced treatment techniques.”

Today, physical therapists from around the country seek the opportunity to come to Houston Methodist Sugar Land, and the competition for acceptance into the program becomes more intense each year.

“Graduates of our residency programs are highly sought after in the job market,” said Nguyen. “We have been developing top-notch clinicians for several years now, and our reputation is a real benefit to our residents.”

“This is an exciting day not just for our doctors, nurses and staff, but for our community as well,” said Greg Haralson, Senior Vice President and CEO, Memorial Hermann Sugar Land. “Our new patient tower and the changes that have taken place on our campus the past two years will allow us to better serve Fort Bend County residents for years to come.”

The new tower adds 60 beds including an expanded Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and a new 16-bed Intermediate Care Unit (IMU). “The IMU is a place for patients who don’t need the level of care offered in our ICU but are not quite ready to move into one of our general patient rooms, says Haralson. “It’s a new service for our campus and one that will allow us to better provide patients with the appropriate level of care while freeing up space in our ICU for patients who truly need that level of attention and care.”

The new patient tower is built with future expansion already in mind. The fifth floor of the tower is shell space that can quickly be converted to 30 additional patient rooms and 4 new operating rooms. The building has also been built with the foundation and infrastructure to add four additional floors to the tower at a later date.

An earlier phase of the project was completed in December 2015 which included the new 100,000 square-foot Medical Plaza 2. The building is now home to the Memorial Hermann IRONMAN Sports Medicine Institute in Sugar Land. In addition to the 255,000 square-feet of new construction on campus, the hospital has also undergone renovation to 30,000 square-feet of space in the existing west tower.

The west tower renovation included adding six beds to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and a new MRI allowing pediatric MRI to be performed on campus.

The changes to the Memorial Hermann Sugar Land campus are just a portion of the investment Memorial Hermann has made in Fort Bend County during the past year. Last summer, Memorial Hermann opened the Memorial Hermann Convenient Care Center at Sienna Plantation and in April, Memorial Hermann Urgent Care Telfair opened.

The new tower also includes conference space on the first floor that community groups and area businesses may use for events. Memorial Hermann Sugar Land is located at 17500 West Grand Parkway South in Sugar Land. For more information, call 281-725-5000.

(Photo by Joe Southern)Greg Haralson, senior vice president and chief executive officer for Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital, stands at the doorway of an in-patient room in the new six-floor patient tower at the hospital.

Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital is opening its new six-story patient tower next Wednesday.

The tower is the centerpiece of a $93 million expansion to the campus.

“The tower is complete and will open on Sept. 7 with our first patient,” said Greg Haralson, senior vice president and chief executive officer.

The addition of the 155,000-square-foot tower on the east side of the campus located at Hwy. 59 and the Grand Parkway significantly increases the number of patients the hospital can care for in addition to providing new and expanded services. The expansion adds 60 new beds bringing the hospital’s total to 147 with the potential of adding more later. Included in that is an increase in the number of intensive care unit (ICU) beds from eight to 14 and the addition of 16 intermediate care beds.

“The intermediate care unit is not a unit we’ve had on this campus in the past,” Haralson said.

He explained that the intermediate care unit provides a level of service between the ICU and a regular hospital bed.

“It’s a higher level of care before you step down to general medicine care,” he said.

Not only is it expensive for both the patient and the hospital for the patient to stay in an ICU room, it also takes up valuable space from other patients who may need the higher level of care offered in the ICU. With the ICU and intermediate care unit on the same floor, the intermediate rooms can be quickly converted to ICU should the need arise.

Other improvements at the hospital include the addition of a new 3T MRI machine, a pediatric MRI unit, a new endoscopic area and more maternity beds.

“We’ve expanded our women’s imaging center,” Haralson said.

There is an expanded nursery and neonatal intensive-care unit. Shelled space has been built for future expansion of four operating rooms. The tower itself is designed for the addition of four more floors on top.

“We’ve built the patient tower to meet the needs of our community today and in the future,” Haralson said. “We have the foundation and infrastructure in place to add four additional floors to the patient tower when necessary. We want to continue to be the healthcare provider of choice for Sugar Land and Fort Bend County and it’s our goal to innovate in a way that meets the unexpressed wishes and needs of our community.”

The top floor of the new tower is not inhabited and is used for building mechanics. The fifth floor is currently shelled space but can be used to add 30 in-patient rooms.

The fourth floor houses 30 regular in-patient rooms. The third floor will have the Intensive Care Unit and Intermediate Care Unit.

Endoscopy, cardiopulmonary and respiratory units and the pharmacy are on the second floor.

“We have room for a future digestive disease center,” he said.

The main floor, which opened to the public in May, has expanded conference room spaces, a café and a pre-admission testing department.

The addition and relocation of services opens room in the existing buildings for expansion.

Not only is there more room for mothers to recover, there is also more space to meet the emergency needs of babies.

“We have an expanded neonatal ICU, going from four to 10 beds,” he said.

Haralson said many of the additions and upgrades are directed at taking care of children.

“We’re dedicated to taking care of the children in this market … We want to keep these kids and take care of them right here,” he said.

The additional space and services also means the need for more personnel.

“We’ve hired 170 new team members – we call them family members here. It’s family caring for family,” Haralson said.

In April the Memorial Herman IRONMAN Sports Medicine Institute opened on the campus. Phase I of the expansion and renovation of the campus was completed in December and included completion of Medical Plaza 2 and the installation of an Advanced Computed Tomography (CT) scanner and a new Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine that will allow pediatric patients to receive an MRI on the campus for the first time.

“We continue to expand beyond what we offer on campus. This past year we’ve brought safe, convenient, high quality healthcare closer to home through the opening of our Memorial Hermann Convenient Care Center in Sienna Plantation and Memorial Hermann Urgent Care in Telfair,” he said.

The hospital opened 10 years ago. Haralson said it was strategically placed at the intersection of Highway 59 and the Grand Parkway for easy access and also with future growth of the community in mind.

“This hospital was built here for a reason 10 years ago,” Haralson said.

The campus was designed to be added onto and even the additions reflect the ability for expansion. Between the expansion of the campus and the addition of the clinics, Haralson said Memorial Hermann is making a sizeable commitment to the community.

“We’ve invested over $100 million throughout the Fort Bend County area,” he said.

With the shelter currently over capacity, and with the growth of Sugar Land bringing in new animals, it looks like the population of pets is growing along with the city. A presentation was made to the City of Sugar Land in June, with the possibility of either having a new shelter built, or expanding the existing 4,300-square-foot facility at 101 Gillingham Lane.

Sugar Land City Council will discuss the expansion proposals at a later date.

“We are growing and we are proactive about that,” said Kathryn Ketchum, Sugar Land Animal Services Manager. “We hope to go and look at sites that the city already owns to build a new location, or if we choose to move, is there land available. We are looking at several options, including our current site, and also off our current site. Currently the shelter has 40 dogs including puppies. The capacity for them is only 24. And there are 94 cats, including kittens. Their capacity is for 27.”

Adoptions are growing, too. As of 2015, there were over 750 animals that found new homes. That’s a lot of growth. While there are still more animals needing homes, Ketchum stresses the need for responsibility from all new and future pet owners.

“We also want pet owners to be responsible and spay and neuter their pets, along with keeping their pets healthy with immunizations, and prevention is key to keeping pets safe and healthy,” Ketchum said.

Rabies has no cure, so a yearly vaccine is important… Especially if the pet is in contact with wildlife – it’s the law. Along with rabies, heart worm is totally preventable with a vaccine.”

Ketchum said those with a new pet who need to have him or her spayed and neutered, the first step is to visit a vet. She said adopters shouldn’t let finances keep them from taking care of their new furry family member. SNAP (Spay-Neuter Assistance Program) is a non-profit agency that helps raise awareness of the problem of animal overpopulation and educates the public about spaying and neutering.

Their clinics provide free and reduced-cost spaying and neutering for cats and dogs. SNAP clinics will also offer extensive animal wellness services to keep animals from getting preventable diseases. The clinic serves Houston and the surrounding areas. For more information, visit www.snapus.org.

To adopt a pet, one can go to the shelter in Sugar Land or stop by PetSmart, who teams up with Petopia, a part of the Sugar Land Animal Services team.

Together they host regular weekend adoption events, finding homes for stray and impounded animals coming through the animal services division.

Ketchum noted that at the event, people can adopt a canine for $55, a feline for $40 until Sept. 17. They are spayed or neutered and have their shots.

The animal adoption events are held every weekend at the PetSmart at 16758 Southwest Freeway in Sugar Land. Cats are housed there seven days a week and dogs are there on weekends.

The adoption policy at Sugar Land Animal Services offers a unique way to get into the adoption door. While they don’t offer straight out adoptions at the facility, they do have what they call a “sleepover” program. If a potential adoptive parent comes in and finds a cat or dog they like, they can take the animal home for a sleepover to see if the relationship is a perfect fit. The pet stays in the home for a few days. If the pet is a fit, the adoption can be completed at the Sugar Land Animal Services location. If the animal is not a perfect fit, it can be returned.

If adoption isn’t in your future, the shelter could still use help.

According to Ketchum, “All kennels are full and volunteers are always needed. We need volunteers to take phone calls, clean and feed the animals, to sit with the animals at the shelter, just to offer one-on-one interaction, like brushing them, taking them for walks. Our staff can’t always provide these services, and that’s when volunteers are so important.”

For more information, contact www.sugarlandpetopia.org, volunteer.sugarlandtx.gov or www.petsmartcharities.org.

AOI is currently trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker “AAOI”. AOI’s vertically integrated capabilities target three end markets, all driven by rapidly growing consumer bandwidth demand, including cable television broadband, internet data centers, and fiber to the home.

In the cable broadband market, AOI is the leading provider of optical components and the second largest provider of subsystems to the CATV industry. AOI’s key customers in the CATV market included Cisco Systems and Biogenomics Corp., a distributor. In the internet data center market, AOI is a supplier of optical modules to multiple tier-1 data center operators, including Amazon and Microsoft. In fiber-to-the-home market, AOI is developing next-generation technology that will enable 1 gigabit bandwidth to the home, which is approximately 100 times the bandwidth of average American homes.

AOI remains a technological innovator and a strong driver of economic prosperity in the Sugar Land area and other locales in which AOI has operations. AOI currently has operations in U.S., Taiwan and China, each carrying manufacturing, research and development, sales and administrative offices to service customers globally.

AOI’s corporate headquarter is located in Sugar Land with 24,000 square feet of manufacturing space, which includes one of the most preeminent, state of the art, commercial III-V laser fabs in the world. AOI’s new headquarter expansion project, at a cost of approximately $33 million, was completed in May.

The new expansion adds two additional buildings adjacent to the the existing headquarters. The first building includes a 106,000-square-foot, three-story concrete facility providing a 15,700-square-foot Class 100,000 clean room, additional office and administration space, as well as research and development labs.

The second building is composed of a 10,000-sqaure-foot Class 10,000 clean room containing a Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) reactor. MOCVD is a widely used, complex semi-conductor manufacturing process.

In December of 2014, AOI completed a move to a new facility in New Taipei City, Taiwan, comprising of 168,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space. AOI’s wholly owned subsidiary, Global Technology, Inc., is located in Ningbo, China, where its 450,000 square feet facility provide the capacity for the manufacturing of video equipment products. With its strategically located and vertically integrated operations, AOI is currently a top supplier worldwide of CATV lasers and subsystems and datacenter transceivers.

The mission of AOI is to develop breakthrough technology to bring life-changing products that affect the lives of people worldwide. AOI’s technological innovation is further supported by the 178 plus issued and pending patents spanning over jurisdiction worldwide. AOI has delivered industry-leading revenue growth at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 40 percent over the past three years.

“We plan to offer our guests a wide range of performances, including concerts, family entertainment, theatrically-staged Broadway productions and of course comedy,” said Randy Bloom, General Manager of the Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land. “Jerry Seinfeld was the perfect choice for our opening night as he is beloved by multiple generations, representing the wide audience range we hope to attract.”

Seinfeld will entertain the Smart Financial Centre’s inaugural audience with his iconic stand-up performance. Seinfeld has been hailed for his uncanny ability to joke about the little things in life that relate to audiences everywhere.

He is currently performing a year-long residency, Jerry Seinfeld: The Homestead at New York’s Beacon Theatre.

“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Jerry Seinfeld to the Smart Financial Centre,” said Larry Seidl, CEO of Smart Financial Credit Union. “Having such a renowned, well-loved performer take the stage as our grand opening act will surely make for an unforgettable experience.”

The Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land is the region’s new state-of-the-art, indoor performance venue, equipped to host a wide array of performances.

The venue’s flexible seating configuration is a unique feature that will allow for the intimacy of a small theatre space to an expanded yet still intimate larger configuration.

“The Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land will be an iconic venue known by residents and visitors alike for high quality performances across all genres, further positioning the city as an entertainment and cultural destination,” said Allen Bogard, Sugar Land City Manager.